


isn't it sad the ones you love best will never be blessed

by hopelessdiamond, inheritor



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Religious, M/M, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, shirtless teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-02 14:07:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/369825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopelessdiamond/pseuds/hopelessdiamond, https://archiveofourown.org/users/inheritor/pseuds/inheritor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a split branch of time, John would one day be worshiped as a god and savior. Dave stops it. Eventually.</p>
            </blockquote>





	isn't it sad the ones you love best will never be blessed

**Author's Note:**

> Art by [VYCO](http://vyco.tumblr.com/), as always.

  


Malis tui moriebar.

Et nihilum facis.

\--

It isn’t your fault, Dave.

But it was. See, John was _good_. He obeyed his father and loved his sister, a good son and brother, and he didn’t do that half-ass love. He loved with all his heart and all his being, and he had no fear. When he first told you that he loved you, it sounded like a sick joke. A good boy like him loving a boy like you, boy like you who talked about plastic protuberances from dolls with every other breath. 

Because you weren’t deserving. Because you collected dead animals on your shelves and your photographs weren’t that great and the sun was always hot so you always drank directly from the milk carton. Because there was nothing great or special about you, because your brother always was the best at fighting and he was the coolest to ever cool, and you spent time not trying because if you tried, you could lose. 

But he loved you, and you didn’t want to be loved because you had red eyes, a smart mouth, and an attitude problem the size of your home state, but he bit hard at his bottom lip. In that split second, you could see how you could hurt him, and you were afraid at your own power. That figure of yourself reflected in those gooby blue eyes seemed like a whole different person, a pale scrawny figure with shades and a mouth twisted up, like you were twisted up on the inside. 

He loved you, and he’d give everything for you. And you didn’t understand why.

its okay dave

No, it wasn’t, and never could be again, because Rose and Jade were nice, but they were good, too. And good could never understand him, but John did, and it was fucking weird because years later, they might be worshipping his figure with flickering candlelight, and you would always know him as that nerd who talked too much about piss poor movies and could be such an asshole dick, no genitalia descriptions could fit him. You didn’t idolize him, and you knew that. You saw the way he could treat his friends, the dickish absent-minded cold shoulder, but that’s what it made all the worse. 

Because he did give everything for you, that’s the thing. He trusted you and loved you with all his heart, and you didn’t get why because you weren’t the guy who deserved all that. But it was the little things that killed you on the inside. 

He’d give you his favorite soda if there was none left in the vending machine, and he’d loan you any amount of money without blinking an eye. He’d probably lend you his life savings if he could, and even if you blew it all on buying the Brooklyn Bridge, he’d just laugh and snort and call you a cheapskate and love you. You took his favorite movie posters off his wall and his shirts when yours was drying and at dinner, he would split his bread with you because he thought you were hungry and you waited for the day you asked for too much, but every single fucking time, he would gaze at you with those slightly begging eyes that thanked you for being there at all. 

yeah

Of course Davesprite would say, yeah. Because he gets it. But what he doesn’t get is that you get it, because you’ve seen into that life and you’ve seen what it does to you. You see the age and experience that he carries, sword around his gut, sees the way his half-ripped wing sags and the orange blood like Fanta soda poured from his mouth. You see that he knows what it’s like to live four months without him, and you see that it brought him back to being a doomed time piece and he has no regrets. And in the end, you failed him. You failed yourself, and him. 

But it was worse than Davesprite because his bird buddy never had that John. Who gave you everything, and you didn’t know why because you are a filthy sinner. 

\--

Blessed be the peacemakers, the meek, his name enshrined in holy lights and stained glass windows. Tiny gods who don’t give a shit, without a world, fighting to make one, fighting to keep one, just fighting. You lay together, bathed in holy sin, angel wings hidden by the cloaks and hoods. His hood entangled in your cloak, his life so entangled in yours, except you were Judas and this was the supper at a one star restaurant. 

Underneath the blankets and your cloak, he kissed you and loved you, worshipped you with his fingers and lips, light touches like holy sacrament for loving too much. He touched your face and your neck and your bare chest, he touched the parts of your skin flushed too red and he touched your spine and your shoulder blades and he touched you and kissed you and loved you. His pianist’s fingers looked small and spindly, but his grip felt strong against your flat stomach. 

nick cage marathon, he was whispering, like lowering his voice that decibel would stop any peering eyed troll from hearing them in space. 

no and that was you, paying half-attention through your lidded eyes because when he tilted his head, the light from the stars lighted onto his dark hair like a halo and he was beautiful. 

jodie foster marathon.

no

matt mc-

no

you didn’t even know what I was going to say!

takes a genius to uncrack that puzzle You haven’t said very much that night. Not thinking about anything serious, but maybe that’s the thing. You’re just trying not to think in particular, let your chest go up and down, focus on your breath and the way it seeps from the gaps of your teeth and brushes against the wetness of your gums, which he kisses so wetly and needily. 

He’s talking a lot tonight. He rolls onto his stomach and grins at you, his teeth showing from his mouth in that dorky, gangly way. He was still as lost as ever, but he had that sincere naïve belief. Everything was going to be okay, that sort of shtick that you never had even on your first Disney movie. Makes you a little sick. 

come on, dave, he says, all eager beaver, what movies do you wanna marathon when we get back?

were not going back home That seemed a little harsh, even for the Strider charm, so you add, were not done yet No need to talk about the unfinished things, or swords stuck out of dead bodies or acrobatic pirouettes. 

we’ll marathon something, he says, and he rolls over onto his stomach, touching your hair. You let him, because he isn’t aiming for the softness of your throat or the hardness of your gut. Doesn’t even pet it, just touches it lightly, like you can feel every strand on your hair and that comforts you. The thought annoys you more than the touch. 

not going to happen you say. 

yes, it’s going to happen, and we will watch all night long. you just have to hang in there, dave. i’ll make it okay. His eyes, searching for yours behind the shades, but he can’t, because your shades are nigh impenetrable, they make those babies out of silicon fiber whateveroptics, build cell phones and tanks out of this material. Nothing can touch you, you’re the untouchable invincible man. 

But he doesn’t have those shields, just blue eyes and an infectious grin and messy hair that stands up like he slept on all the wrong sides of every bed. This annoys you. Everything annoys you tonight. 

yeah sure

you don’t believe me? because i don’t want to hafta show you my gun show, dave, but i will if you don’t believe

You cut off his imitation of flexing his biceps, cut off that branch that would have led to a gentler conversation of mockery and niceties, because you’re a fuck up who doesn’t understand what’s going to happen, doesn’t get the type of person you are, Judas sitting at the dinner table taking the last drum stick. 

i believe you you say, more bitterness than you thought, youre going to save the whole damn world with that optimism, scientific reports find solar beams do shoot out of your ass, harvest the power to make a better man

He sits there, stewing in his own confusion, as you stew in what you thought would be triumph of chewing out your best friend for being nice, and find, surprise surprise, that you just felt like a piece of shit instead. It’s been a bad day. 

you’re being an ass, he says first, because that’s him, no punches pulled, and then, did I do something wrong? because that’s him, being a good friend. 

no you say. you did nothing wrong

then what is it? you can’t go around pulling asshole moves and not telling me, dave. it is against all the rules, and i have the rulebook, so i know. It comforts you, the warm blue mass of friendship trying to love you. 

you got god tier first It’s the most you can say about what’s really bothering you, that it wasn't just the god tier, it was everything, but John takes it, and runs completely in the wrong direction. 

wow, seriously? man, that doesn’t even mean anything because we’re all god tier now and this is like those anime hentais where the girls are comparing their hooties and it doesn’t even matter! His eyes are guileless. It doesn’t matter to him. Figures. 

thats not it

then i don’t get it! dave, it doesn’t matter. you got there and you have even better cool powers, like time, because time is pretty awesome, and

Cut him off, cut him off because the Dave Love Festival was disgusting and full of sick lies, and you don’t want to hear your own praise for once, you throw enough of that at yourself to last you decades. Hearing false praise wasn’t so bad, but not when it came from him.

youre a hero you say, like you’re struggling to speak underwater. you got all that stupid hero belief that you can make things right. youre a good guy. youre the good guy, john egbert, all around good guy, a hero is you. The implication hangs heavy in the air. That you don’t have that belief, you’re not the hero. You go around and hate the world. You fight in your own bitterness, not because you think there’s a better world, but because there’s a realistic one. 

So you’re surprised when a better world comes, and he wraps his arms around you tightly, lying almost on top of you on the cold ship deck and the space is buzzing ahead of you and you watched a god ascend into the world and you watched your best friend die and a wind blows against your hair, touching it. 

jeez, dave, he says, and his words are almost buried in your cloak, it's not like that. if you weren't there, being smart, my butt would have been dead a lot of times. like, a lot more times? we wouldn’t have gotten this far without you. you’re a hero.

why do you like me? The words shoot out of your mouth too fast, and you’re rambling frantically because his skin is soft like a lamb and he is the king and you are the betraying witness. it pisses me off when you give everything to me. im not the one he loved that guy and its pissing me off because

oh, god, dave, shut up. you are that guy. you’re that guy times a million. He whispers soft in your ear and the blankets cradle you like it was a manger, his leg pressed against yours, burning red hot. 

shit fuck just listen to me you keep sacrificing your stuff to give me all your crap and i dont

dave! And his hands curl in anger around your ear, and he’s so close to you that you can smell the earthly scent of his skin and he hugs you so hard that it hurts your ribs.

get off me. you smell like turnips. He doesn’t, and he knows it. 

i love everything about you. i love you, and i don’t sacrifice anything. i just want you to be happy and there’s nothing about you that i don’t love, and i wish one day you’ll see what i see in you because it’s good, dave, and you’re an ass, but you deserve everything that i can’t give you and i love you because you’re you. And he stares at you with his goober eyes and he presses his angled fingers against your bony shoulder and you feel like telling him everything that you’ve ever done wrong, just a splurge of feelings and emotions and you don’t know why, but you can’t stop.

i killed that crow

i know, dave.

and ive watched one of bros snuff films

it’s ok, dave.

nick cages face is fucking creepy but i took the posters down because i wanted to see and the words are leaving your mouth helplessly, if you would still stay And you know, beyond all else, John could get up and leave. But he laid there with you on your scratchy cloak, and he touched the tendrils of your hair.

i forgive you for all your bullshit and i always, always will.

And, for a second, it was good. 

\--

Except they were tiny gods and he was their shepherd, and they would never be in want. He walked through the valley of death by your side, even when your love was envious, boastful, proud. He loved where you didn’t, forgave where you couldn’t. He was a baby wrapped up in a manger, and he was the youngest and ruled like he served. 

He pushed you out of the way. 

Split second rush, such a small amount of time, wouldn’t even be able to put out a decent note in that amount of time, but it felt slow, because you were the knight of time and your half-broken sword hung by your side, legendary pieces of shits alike, and he pushed you out of the way because he didn’t get what heroic or just meant, he’s not that smart. Didn’t even think for a second that maybe you weren’t heroic enough to die a heroic death. 

Maybe you were, who knows, because suddenly there’s a blade pointed out of his chest and it doesn’t belong there, put Excalibur back in the stone, put that thing back in your pants, but it’s sticking out of where his heart should have been with a sickening crunch of his ribs folding over like cracked false idols onto his soft fleshy heart and blood runs down his shirt in thick globs and then he’s slumped over, eyes still a little wide and glasses still on his face and you forget being cool, you’re scrambling over to him and that sword should have been going through your chest, yours alone, he took it, he took it away from you. 

And you were a piece of crap, a piece of shit, someone who never really faced up, owned up to being dead. You didn’t like to die. That’s a fact. You have, but you haven’t died like he has, throwing himself into death without a second thought because he trusted in the world that shouldn’t be trusted, and you were supposed to be the one who told the world fuck it, act like a good world for him, but you didn’t. Because you were afraid of dying, because you wouldn’t have your stupid GameBoy and it would hurt and it’s death, the great unknown, and he’s there dying like it’s the best thing in the world. 

He’s in pain, you know it. You even winced when you saw that sword go through him, that sickening crunch, but there he’s lying in your arms tonight, stupid songs crying out forever, and he’s smiling with his stupid bucktooth teeth. Smiling because he saved you, smiling because he saw the world, and it was good. 

Dies smiling, and you scream.

\--

The time bullshit piled on more time bullshit, meaning, time paradoxes everywhere. It annoys you, even as you sit next to his cold dead corpse, and you’re toying around with a pocket watch because it’s an impossible trap. Maybe even Davesprite doesn’t think you’d go through with it, but that’s the thing. You’ve seen him.

You’ve seen Davesprite, all four months without him, and he’s not the same because of it. Screw the time jump, screw living another time piece life, that’s the thing. Four months isn’t the same as a lifetime. Lifetime is worse. Simple math. 

It’s been three days since you’ve been trying to decide, and you’re toying around with the watch when you finally snap it shut. You snap it shut, and you begin to try and pull the time into your hands, getting ready, make those paradoxes, trap yourself in that unenviable life, because you’re the preacher of his religion, of the one person who forgave your sins and loved you because of them, and on the third day, he will rise again.

A wind blows into the room, and touches your hair.


End file.
